The lifelong Florida resident has succeeded in banking and real estate development careers. He spends much of his time as a pilot, boater and skin diver and currently fills his days with philanthropic endeavors through the Schmidt Family Foundation which he spearheads with his wife, Barbara, an internationally known, best-selling author.

Several years ago, he became an author himself, releasing two books in 2016 – “The Boy and the Dolphin” and “Memory Road.”

Late last year, Lynn University held a launch party and book signing for the prolific Mr. Schmidt where he discussed, read from and placed his signature inside a new tome called “Career.”

Some 100 people showed up to hear about and obtain copies of the latest Schmidt-authored volume.

He admits a fourth book is in the works. It took about three months to write each of his three novels.

Set in South Florida during the 2008 monetary crisis, “Career” gives readers a look into the fast-paced, high-risk world of finance.

Schmidt said the focus of the book is on a fictional character named Jorge Gonzalez, the only member of his family to break out of the refugee culture of the Mariel Boatlift arrivals in the U.S. from Cuba. Gonzalez is the pride of the community, but his successful career as a CPA is trashed when a client named Adam Schaeffer diverts hundreds of millions of dollars from Gonzalez’s business to Schaeffer’s European accounts using a sophisticated financial contrivance.

The schemer then fakes his own death and prepares to leave the country to join the money he has stolen.

With the help of his romantic interest, Jorge searches for the thief at the same time as a mob boss who has also uncovered the fraud. The contest is on–who will find the bad guy first and how will it resolve?

Addressing the crowd at Lynn, the author said he gets ideas for his books from “things I see happening in the real world. I twist them a bit and see how people will deal with them.”

“If normal people are thrown in with the wolves,” he said, “how will they respond?”

“I love to work; I love to create stories,” said Schmidt. “I can write for five minutes or five hours. I can pick up where I started.”

Offering a few tidbits about the book, he said, “The character of the nice girl from Queens is the girl from the AT&T commercials. I wanted her image for the cover, but it would have cost a grand.”

He noted that on page 253 of the book “is a great French toast recipe.” He did not comment on why he singled that out, but among the hors d’oeuvres given out at the reception was a sliver of French toast inside a tiny container of syrup.

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